Isabella Harwood or Ross Neil (14 June 1837 – 29 May 1888) was a British novelist who also wrote dramas in verse.
Biography Harwood was probably born in Dorset in 1837 where her parents Philip Harwood and his wife Isabella Neil lived. Phillip Harwood was then a Unitarian minister in Bridport.R. K. Webb, 'Harwood, Philip (1811–1887)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 29 Dec 2014
Between 1864 and 1870 she wrote four sensational novels which were published without attribution. Between 1871 and 1883 she wrote a number of unfashionable blank verse dramas which were said to be readable.Isabella Harwood ("Ross Neil") (1840–1888), Critical and Biographical Essay by Richard Garnett Two were produced in Edinburgh and London but they were not favourably received.
Harwood lived with her father in London and then in Hastings. She died in St Mary-in-the-Castle in 1888 in Hastings a year after her father.Megan A. Stephan, 'Harwood, Isabella Neil (1837?–1888)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 28 Dec 2014
Works
Novels Abbot's Cleve Carleton Grange Raymond's Heroine Kathleen The Heir Expectant Plays Lady Jane Grey; Inez, or, The Bride of Portugal
Plays The Cid; The King and the Angel; Duke for a Day; or The Tailor of Brussels Elfinella, or, Home from Fairyland; Lord and Lady Russell Arabella Stuart; The Heir of Linne; Tasso Eglantine Andrea the Painter; Claudia's Choice; Orestes; Pandora
References